Book Review: Punishment

This is the first of Norwegian author Anne Holt’s
novels to hit UK shores. PUNISHMENT, published in the
US as WHAT IS MINE, stars Superintendent Adam Stubo, a
police officer struggling to solve a string of
disappearances. In the midst of a beautiful spring in
Norway, a series of children have vanished and the
victims appear to have no clear connection. Stubo
turns to legal researcher Johanne Vik, but she is more
interested in researching a miscarriage of justice
from the past. Will Stubo be able to convince her to
come on board and help solve the mystery?

PUNISHMENT is a very interesting novel that shows Anne
Holt’s skill as an author, but is at times let down by
moments of clumsiness. Take, for example, the events
of the denouement when an event brings a sudden and
unexpected conclusion to the tale. It is an example of
pure implausibility and I had to stifle the sudden
urge to hurl the book against the wall in fury. The
chances of such an event occuring are slim to
non-existent and I felt that Holt was cheating the
readers by playing with such unlikely coincidences.
This is also rather surprising, given that she has
been writing since 1993.

Holt does, however, triumph with her characters, all
of whom are multi-layered and ripe for development.
The nascent relationship between Johanne Vik and Adam
Stubo is developed well and we are given numerous
insights into the troubled psyche of all the
protagonists. Particularly interesting is the manner
in which the country struggles to come to terms with
what is going on, since child abductions of this sort
are extremely uncommon in Norway. A reader, I am sure,
would find it hard to imagine such dark happenings in
Scandinavia, but Holt paints a terrifying picture of
how fear grips the country.

Overall, the novel has been translated well by Kari
Dickson, who deserves a great deal of credit for
making the story read well in English. There was one
occasion, however, in which I thought the translation
fell down. We are told that a character was struggling
with whether to say the word ‘profiler’ in English or
in Norwegian. Given that we are reading an English
translation, we do not want to think about the
Norwegian language at all, except when it is used to
give a little local colour, to the novel and I found
that it really jarred. Despite this, however, I
thought the prose was fluid and the story worked well
as a whole – apart from being let down by extremely
weak conclusion.

Luke Croll - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author,
Luke Croll - RAM